that works for you. i can get well, and i'm a living example. so i happen to be the maryland person of the year, and we developed a mobile app for amtrak. we were instrumental in developing this application for them. so we were the beneficiary of the sba, sbdc, the legislation, the ara legislation so we thank you. we're extremely grateful. you made a difference in our business. our business continued to grow. our revenues as well as our profit, we tighten things down. so our profit percent increased 190% year-over-year. my question -- i think as small businesses we are very strong, and by the way my company's name is software con sort yum.

we are the business person of the year, but what my question is is from a dwooi-- we're look beyond the recession and the global competition. as it relates to our business, what should we be doing to look to athat global economy? what advice do you have, and who should we talk to? >> well, i'm just answer i'm in the manufacturing, as i mentioned, and you know i think it's really important i actually back in 2003 went over to china on my first trade mission and have been over there three times since, been to india and south america. we as small business owners have to grasp that we are a global economy and get educated as to what our challenges are? what things we can do better with us and better with them? i think we're all hearing there's a lot going on now with the industry coming back to the

united states and we need to be prepared for that. it's to educate yourself and reach out to other international groups and find out where your expertise is, where you can blend in with the different programs. >> come to the expert forum this afternoon. >> thank you. >> thank you all. you're doing a fabulous job. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you all for attending. >> coming up this evening former british foreign affairs testifies before a british panel investigating the culture and ethics of a media. it examines the prirmts of the fire service committee and the u.s. fire administration. later the consumer federation of america hosts a discussion on ways to combat rising obesity in america and improves school nutrition standards.

here's a look at live coverage tuesday on the c-span networks here on c-span3 at 10:00 a.m. eastern. the senate energy and natural resource committee holds a hearing on the role of the federal government and energy ennotice vags. it including for he remember lockheed martin ceo. he leads the american energy innovation council which publish add a report concludes the government has a integral role to play in the process. senate banking committee holds a hearing to the derivative market and the dodd-frank law. regulators are formulating language on a provision known as the volcker rule. a.p. morgan recently a nounced a $2 billion trading loss. >> people look what happened with jpmorgan and say here's a company that made a stupid decision and did something dumb

and lost money and fired the people that were responsible. this is the market at work. this is how it's supposed to happen. why does government need to play a role? >> to some extent that's true, and i take some credit for it. if this had happened five years ago, if jpmorgan had lost what appears to be more than $2 billion, you would have seen much more panic in the economy. you would have seen much more concern. what we did in the legislation we passed and through other things was to require the financial institutions be much better capitalized. one of the things that's a result of the government telling them you have to have more capital you would have had otherwise, that helps give people reaassurance. >> this past weekend, congressman barney frank spoke about the over $2 billion loss by jpmorgan chase as well as the state of the u.s. and world economies. the dodd-frank law and gay marriage. watch his comments online at the c-span video library.

britain's former foreign affairs secretary under tony blair testified before a british inquiry examining relationships between the politicians and the press. jack straw said rupert murder dork had power over politicians and said that the blair government's relationship with journalists was very incestuous. he served for ten years under prime minister blair. >> today's witness is mr. straub. >> thank you. >> the evidence i shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. >> thank you.

>> i'm commonly known as jack. >> your witness statement is dated the 30th of april of this year. you signed and dated it. are you content to confirm its contents are true for the purposes of this inquiry. >> i am. >> thank you very much for your witness statement and the obvious effort you put into it and also for some of the inaccuracies which were precedent. of all the witnesses who have appeared or who are to appear at this inquiry, as i made a clear declaration at the very beginning, i know mr. straub the best, not merely because we knew each other many, many years ago but because i work quite closely with them in my capacity when he was the lord chancellor and secretary of state for justice. >> thank you, sir. >> mr. straw, in terms of your career, the dates may be

relevant for certain parts of the evidence. i will set it out. home secretary 1997 to 2001, foreign secretariary 2001 to 2006. 2006 to 2007, and then lord chancellor and secretary of state for justice 2007 to 2010, is that right? >> yes. >> gentlemen questions, mr. straw, about engagement with the media. this is paragraph 9 of your statement on page 02547 where you speak of the general public interest in engagement between politicians and the media. i'm going to ask you to please explain in general terms of risks as you see them, particularly paragraph 11. >> the risks are really getting too close to the press. we live in a democracy. free press plays a critical role in our system of democracy.

every politician wants to have the best relationship they can with the press, because the press is the prism through which the work of politicians and other people in the public life is perceived or the main prism. but if you get too close, your own position becomes compromi d compromised. more likely than compromising the position of the press and can undermine your integrity. >> thank you. we'll deal with na in small details in due course. the way -- the steps you took to emeal yat those risks, paragraph 14 to paragraph 16 of your statement, these are quotes for me, words of advice we would give to others in which you sought to follow during your political career, is that right? >> i did.

i mean, i suppose i -- i learn my trade in the school of hard knocks, but quite early on. in that respect i was fortunate, because the period i spent in the late '60s and early '70s when politicians did things very high profile. front page stuff. it taught me a lot about what to do in relation it the press and what not to do. and then having spent 17 years in opposition, thinking about this a lot. i sort of came to these views over that period. i also saw the effects of -- on those colleagues and the opposition on the other side who got too close to the press.

your share price goes up for politicians of the party. like any share prices, they're going to crash. those who r, as it were, per share and they are puffing the share don't see that, but i think any sensible person can see it. i just took the view -- i may not have always been perfect in following it. that you have to take the rough with the smooth, so certainly as they will tell you, my view was go on and face the music even if it was going to be really difficult. i certainly -- i was always clear that if i was asked to go to parliament, i should do and do plenty at times when i was arguing with the whip's office to let me go to parliament rather than to sort of hide. and ultimately if you just are as straight as you can be, that would come through, even though

you get uncomfortable right on you way. >> the point you made about a rising share price in opposition, it's inevitable in opposition and the politicians have to cultivate the journalists because that's the best way to get the message across. the share price rises. then then have government and the position changes. how or what is the best way to manage that change? the expectations which arise on both sides in your view. >> yes. i mean, the relationship between media and politicians is not symmetrical as between government and opposition. in opposition what matters is what you are saying. it is -- what you're saying you're going to do, but you can't be tested in terms of your actions. much press media reporting of

politics is a copy which is ramed by reference to the government and these days it's part of your culture. most of those stories, i'm looking for stories in one way or another. you get a close, sometimes cozy relationship being built up between a particular journalist and spokes people, and i'm very, very close, sometimes in incestuous. we will have to try and do that. when i was education spokesman between '87 and '92, there were education correspondents that i would work with when i became foreign affairs correspondent between '94 and '97. again, there was correspondents that you would work with and build up stories and enjoy the results. that has to change when you go into government.

i think one of the reasons -- there was a bigger reasons, and one of the reasons why collectively the blair government was too close to some people in the press was because of our experience in opposition, and we had not stopped him for -- hang on. we can't continue to prit in that way gor government. >> i will pick that point up a little bit later, mr. straw. the general points you make in paragraphs 20 and 21, 05248, points which we've heard from other witnesses, in particular the need to sensationalize really. the truth may be boring, but if you add the spice of a personality clash or conflict, it becomes more interesting. this is paragraph 20. >> yes. >> then the problems of print

media are declined. mr. campbell with respect to those matters, are there any points you wish to elaborate? >> two sets of points. one is that there wasn't even a golden age of jr.ism, and indeed before television or radio got going, fshg, the newspapers were even more powerful than they are today. part of the focus of the labor par party. it's about the roll that the daily mail played in the defeat of the second election in '94 when they published this letter suggesting that the labor party receive moss co-gold, which subsequently but a long time afterwards turned out to be a complete forgery. no question. it assisted our defeat. so that's -- >> you have a long memory, mr. straw. >> not even i was there at the time. my grandfather was, and i

remembered it. i remember him telling this with great bitterness how labor had been deprived of the government in the last eight months. but the -- they were more powerful in one sense. they brought the papers and papers at the daily mail and the daily mirror used to report what was going on in parliament as a public service. and that's started to disappear. in fact, i think coincidentally with the televising of parliament. as i submitted, sir, to the inquiry, i got a young researcher working with me as a intern in 1993 to do a lot of work in the newspaper library charting the decline of reporting, being pretty stable and then it shut down. and the effect of that, and it's

led to -- contributed to ignorance by the public about what happens. just to give you an xarcexample it's subject to correction. the online editor of the times, mr. philip webster started life working in the gallery, the press gallery at the house of commons. he told me at that time there were 12 people in the gallery, not the lobby, whose sole job was to produce the 7,000 words a day, which reported what had happened in parliament. if you want to know what happened as opposed to the background stories and fights were, that would be there. that's all true when i went into the house in the late '70s. that's gone, and it's been replaced by this sort of personality conflict-based journalism. if you're pursuing a policy, which is consensual, that ought to be a good thing and the papers in the editorial columns

say why aren't you going for agreed policies with the opposition? often you are. probably half of it that goes through is aagreed. that has a knock it for not being summoned. the second point is this, thattal the radio and internet, much more powerful and to some extent balanced print media, it's still the print media that sets the news values, and i was very struck that written evidence, this is paragraph 17 of his evidence. he brings that point out, that they set the news values and set the news values for the broadcasters as much as they do for their own colleagues in the print media. >> thank you. >> special advisers now. paragraph 27 and 28. when you were in high office

over 13 years i presume you had special advisers. can you assist us? >> yes. i had any one time special advisers. i had one that was on the policy side, and the other who dealt on the media side. on the media side i had to fill that slot. one was the one with me in opposition from 1993 and stayed until the general leak of 2005 and then the second was mark davis with me from '05 to 2010. both were journalists that came to the job as journalists. and their job is to have direct relations with the media and also to cooperate and work closely with the civil service press offices. both were completely straight, are completely straight, and i wouldn't employee them for a second if they had not been.

they had good reputations for being straight and for, i think, not being manipulative and that's how i wanted it. i'm afraid my observations, i was a special adviser in the '70s is they're a mix bunch of special advisers. to some extent they reflected the kind of personality and quirks of their bosses. and some people in politics are obsessive xuls to her and think that any way you make your way is by being above above in all kinds of conspiracies and stuff. they employed sfeshl advisers who are similarly up to fancy tactics. the share price is rising for a period more than the generality, and then invariably the share price question had the ministers themselves having to resign. this was a long learning process.

>> the extent to which your media special advisers acted under your jek direction, can you help us with that? >> they acted under our complete direction. it wasn't general direction. i knew what they were doing, and i knew in real time what they were doing. first of all, they were in and out of the office. they were part of the private office. i mean, in each case they weren't exactly the same floor. so, for example, in the foreign office, i mean, there's one that's an old building, one area that was just distancing out, and the same is true is the justice. and the thing about this. if there was a moment where they acted inappropriately, then somebody else in this very open environment, supposed to break confidentiality would have told me the private secretary, the permanent secretary, the press

officer. he would have found out immediately. >> okay. aspects of your own individual practice. it's paragraph 30 of your statement and following, page 02550. will you explain in paragraph 30 you've known a number of senior jurmists for years. you have contact numbers, but the political scene has often called for issues coming that would depend on the number of factors. i understand the underlying reasons for that. can i ask you about mr. shaf wire you i. you've known him since university in the late 1960s. since then how frequently do you meet him? >> not that often. i mean, that's -- he -- so it's

a respectful acquaintanceship. it's not a friendship. it could have been a friendship, a close friendship, but it isn't. that's how it's been. i have to crawl through my diaries, but i guess aside from when there's policy business to deal with as there was towards the end of my period at the ministry of justice, i probably would see him for lunch say maybe once a year. i might bump into him in other environments. i could have went through my diaries and asked him to do the same. but i was president of the student's league in my last year, and i think he was very -- obviously very talented young journalist who he arrived and he became the editor of the union news very quickly. so i think he was in his first

year. we went aalong, and i think a position of kind of mutual respect there. as i said in my evidence, my relationship with him has been made more straightforward because his political views and mine and those of his newspaper are different. so i mean i never held my breath because i knew mr. baker somehow or rather in the editorials on the election day saying that people would be insane if they voted labor. it's okay in blackburn. i've never expected it. so a supreme relationship. >> it's that the exchanges between you not frequent or any text messages rarely spoke to the mobile telephone. is that it? that's in my life.

famously i don't think he does much for mr. blair in this respect. i don't think he uses computers. and so as if to -- what i wanted to say by e-mail, i've sent him that to a p.a. in his office. so i have his phone number on my system, but i can't remember it. i don't think i've ever sent him a text. >> did the relationship change at all when mr. brown became prime minister? mr. brown was much closer to him than was mr. blair. >> yes, mr. daker was there to his, but you find that he was skeptical about mr. blair in a way that he was less skeptical about mr. brown. he did partly because mr. brown before he became leader with a view to becoming leader had had conversations with mr. daker

about mr. daker heading up an inquiry into the third year rule. so i mean that in a sense was a done deal. as mr. brown became prime minister. i then took on the operational side of that inquiry. and, of course, subsequently there were conversations where mr. daker and other colleagues from the press about the data protection act increasing in sentences. >> we'll come to the details of that. before we go on, can i go back to a phrase i rather like, respectful acquaintanceship. was that because you or he felt that your respective paths took you in different directions and tlafr that was the best way, or was it it just that jurs a coincidence and you wouldn't have minded if it was more? do you understand what i'm asking? >> yes, i do.

there was nothing explicit. at university all of us -- you meet people, and i was never close to it. it was a respectful realitilatip and nothing more. our paths could have crossed more but didn't. there was quite a period where i was in london and in deed working briefly when i didn't have anything to do with him. it could have developed. i think that it's completely unsaid, but, i mean, as far as i gather, he's pretty private about his family life. we are about ours. we have never turned our housing into sort of salon for politicians. we like almost all of our personal friends, our family friends are not politicians or journalists for that matter. they're friends.

so i have no idea who his friends are, but i suspect they're really similar. >> i wasn't seeking to be personal. i was really seeking to examine whether you had taken a decision which in the a lot of what you said would be entirely understandable that it was a gal i got on w. sure, i could try and get them, but actually because i think there is an issue about closeness, then i want -- if you did reach that conclusion, we know that this is going back home for years, because it's very relevant to the issues that we've been talking about about the extent of closeness of relationships. >> my mindset always was not to get too close, although i think it was rather incoherent view of mine at the time. that was my instinct, that you shouldn't get too close.

i was so -- for example, if i was getting worked over in the press, which happens from time to time, if you're a minister or senior opposition person, sometimes fairly or unfairly. my view always was really to not try to phone up an editor and complain about it. i thought it would make it worse and it would look pretty weak and with a bit of luck they'd think of something else to write about. you might be lucky. normally i was. there was nothing much to do about it. i might get special adviser or the press officer to talk to the journalists concerned but not to be bleating to the editor. what's the point? does that answer your question, sir? >> yes. it's really the way of thinking, because you're talking now about over 30 years and one of the interesting issues for me is

whether what everybody now concedes has been -- has become an overcoated relationship is recent or really indemmink in the system. from what you're saying, i'm getting at least from my perspective it was never indemmink because i perhaps incoherently subconsciously always decided that wasn't a sensible line. >> yes, i think that -- so that is true. is it recent? no, it's not recent. and i mean this is as old as the popular papers. you think about the relationship between hugh and the labor governments. and when i worked for barbara castle who had been a journalist. and i think the best way of describing mrs.